The Cold Black OCP

This week, I believe, sees the release of Robocop, the future of the future of law enforcement! A remake of the 1987 classic satire about corporate greed, corrupt law enforcement and the struggle of mankind to balance it's humanity against the tidal wave of technological development. An absolute world away from our current, cyber-prep utopia where big business is all hugs and puppies, the police are infallible demi-gods who are never on the take and there are absolutely, positively no concerns, worries, qualms or even minor niggles about the rapid rise of technological development. So naturally, with all the themes of the movie as out of date as they are, and all the wry criticisms aimed at problems that just aren't a problem in this modern world; and! Come to think of it, did we really need all that blood and violence?! Oh no, of course not, we don't need all that grotesque body horror leaving our viewers questioning if our main character is more corporate machine than man, nor do we need all that excessive brutality to further blur the lines between the corporations and the criminal gangs until it all blurs into one. No, quite right, absolutely no place or relevance in that these days - So of course, it was only natural that this remake needed to happen. Nobody could possibly enjoy the old film on it's own merits now, right?

... Right?!

Okay, I don't think my internal sarcasm metre can take much more of this without blowing several major gaskets, and bursting into a rather ominous blue-green flame, so I'm going to draw a line under that right now. The truth is, Robocop isn't just one of the greatest sci-fi films ever made, it's also one of my favourite films full stop.Possibly the favourite. I adore the hyper violence, I adore the cyberpunk trappings, I adore the snappy dialogue and one liners, I adore the characters and I adore the barbed wire satire that still stings today even through it's big shoulder padded, floppy haired eighties trappings. Given this fact, the Robocop remake would seem like perfect blog fodder for me - But there's two problems.

The first is that I just have no interest in seeing it. Not even from the standpoint of morbid curiosity. It doesn't, in truth, even look particularly bad. In fact, I almost wish it did, because what it does look is something even worse - It looks boring. The only person who looks like they're having any fun in their role from the trailers is Michael Keaton, and considering he was almost the only thing worth watching in The Other Guys I don't really see that as much to shout about. The world looks like one of charcoal concrete, shimmering skyscrapers and gunmetal grey (see, for reference, almost every other modern science fiction movie) and Robocop himself looks like he has more in common with Master Chief than Judge Dredd in cyborg form.

The second? You don't need me to tell you why Robocop is great. You all know why Robocop is great, each and every one of you, even if you don't agree with those things and only know them as why other people think the film is great. If I like Robocop the remake or not, anything I write on it is going to be overshadowed by those things. I did consider writing something on Robocop 2 which I consider the best thing Frank Miller has ever produced, and a worthy successor to the original and other people see as barely a baby step up from the horror that is Robocop 3. But to be honest with you, the Robocop remake hasn't really got under my skin yet. The advertising blitz for it either hasn't arrive in full force, or just plain isn't coming, and I'm half expecting it to whimper in the spotlight and limp off with it's tail between it's legs like the Total Recall remake did. Even if it doesn't, well as I alluded to above, Robocop 3 has already happened, so it's not like it can be the worst thing to ever happen to the franchise.

So let's grab the metaphorical wheel of this blog and turn it right around to an adaptation of a previous work that I actually think matters!

Let's talk about Coraline.

Coraline is a 2002 children's novel by Neil Gaiman. It's also a 2009 stop-motion animated film by Henry Selick. Both are about a young girl who finds another world on the other side of a door, both are brilliant in their own way and both have been consumed by me very recently. I've had intentions to read Coraline for a very long time, and have owned the movie for almost a year now and never watched it. I always wanted to read the novel first, but never got my hands on the novel, so never got around to watching the movie and I think you can see how this cycle went. Well, I picked up the novel just before Christmas, and just this week have finally broken the cycle.

Having devoured and thoroughly enjoyed the book, I was greatly looking forward to the film. I'm a big fan of stop-motion animation, and a huge fan of Henry Selick's big claim to fame, The Nightmare Before Christmas. Let me be clear, before I say anything else, Coraline the movie is beautiful. It's beautifully made, beautifully put together and the art style and slightly jerky, inhuman movements suit the tone and style of the book very well. There are also some very well thought out camera angles, coming up from under desks and between bushes to give you the idea that you're not only the audience, but a silent, stalking, ethereal watcher peering into Coraline's personal life. It sends a chill down your spine from the very first scene, and leaves you with a creeping sense of unease right through the first half of the movie. If this was a silent movie, I'd wish everyone a jolly well done and say it was a shame they didn't have any words in it - After all, did they see the book? That has nothing but words in it, and it's rather wonderful!

The problem, which hindered my enjoyment of the film more than I'd have liked, was the characters. I didn't really find an awful lot to like in the interpretation of Coraline herself and her family that the film presented to us. Coraline herself was loud, obnoxious and bordering on bratty and her parents were on the border of just being plain neglectful. This wouldn't be too much of a problem, there's an element of the brat in the book Coraline too afterall (her refusal to eat anything her dad eats, because it looks disgusting for example) and we all know full well that children can be this way, as can their parents. But the problem is I've seen all this before. It's one of the standard, fall-back parent/children relations. I'm going to be sarcastic and dismissive to you until you pay attention to me, well I'm going to ignore you because my job is more important than you'll ever be, GOD!  You're the worst parents ever! I'm going to my room! *slam* It gets to the point where you completely understand why the parents can't stand the child, and the child can't stand the parent, and why the snake will continue to eat it's own tail but I'm bored of it. Especially when I've seen the same story, given a better treatment in this regards.

In the book, none of the characters are really expecting anything too unreasonable. It's obvious that they all love each other in a way that the film family is never shown too, the story that Coraline tells the cat about her dad being one of the most moving in the entire book. It's just everyone has their priorities in a different order. Coraline wants to explore and keep occupied and for people to get her name right and pay a touch more attention to her, but appreciates at least that her parents are trying. Their efforts just don't always live up to her expectations. Her parents also are aware they have a responsibility to look after her, but at the same time they have their own busy lives to juggle and sometimes those two needs just don't sync up. Coraline knows, for example, that her not being able to go outside isn't just her parents being unreasonable mudaphobes and keeping her inside is actually for her own well being. Just like her father only gives her the list of windows, doors, blue things, etc. to count because he knows his daughter is going crazy being couped up inside, and tries to help her as best he can in the current circumstances. It certainly never struck me as an 'I'm so freaking busy I have no time for you right now please go away so I can finish my work, please, please, pleeeeeeassseee!!!!' ploy like it did in the movie.

I suppose my point is, the family in the book felt like real people who, by and large, wanted the same thing - But not at the same time. And those things they did clash on (such as cooking, clothes shopping, etc.) really stood out. The family in the movie just seem cobbled together from screenwriter tropes of headstrong, snarky young girl and strung out, out of touch workaholic family.

Where the film does shine, however, is in recreating the more grandiose spectacles of the book, and creating a few more of it's own. The theatre belonging to the Other World Spink and Forcible was an absolute wonder to behold, and I think the Mouse Circus ranks alongside the Pink Elephants in Dumbo as an utterly bewilderingly beautiful sequence that I'll be hard pressed to forget. The problem tends to be that the art style lends itself so well to the weird and wonderful, that the real world seems barely grounded in reality itself. Spink, Forcible and the Old Man in the book are hugely eccentric, but they're the kind of eccentric I can believe. In the movie, they do and say things that seem more in line with the Other World and it blurs the line between the two, making the real world seem like an unnerving, dull grey, slightly off key place and the Other World seem like a circus parody of the entire thing. Compared to the description of Coraline's Other Father, or the fate of Other Spink and Other Forible in the book, what we're presented with seems tame. Especially when taken in conjunction with Chris Riddell's haunting visuals.

Taken from Illiustrationcupboard

Neil Gaiman's world is one of scrapped bloody knees, gouged faces, rats that bleed blood and not sand and altogether feels more dangerous and imperative. It feeds the imagination like a good book is supposed too, but a movie, especially a children's movie, doesn't have that liberty. In an already visual format, something has to give, and I think despite that, the film did a good enough job. While the final encounters with the other inhabitants of that world may not have lived up to expectations, the final encounter with the Other Mother? That was all the best parts of the movie rolled into one. The chilly atmosphere of the first half returned in full force, the sense of danger went right up to eleven and the whole thing was a visual feast as Coraline raced to escape her inevitable doom. It is also incredibly unfair to pit the visuals in the movie to the slow, bubbling recesses of my imagination that the author managed to stoke - I've been in my head. Spent my entire life there, in fact. I'm very well aware of which one is going to win.

The one thing I can't really forgive the film for, though, is the ending. I'm going to try not to spoil it, but I will say that at the end of the book, Coraline survives through her own wits and ingenuity. In the film, however, she's saved. It's kind of a running theme, when I think about it. Things she was clever enough to work out on her own, she was hinted towards or out right told about in the film. I don't really mind that so much, as I suppose with the lack of an internal monologue you could put it down to letting the audience know what's going on as much as Coraline herself, but the tweak to the ending kind of did leave a slightly sour note in my mouth - Mainly because it solidified this Coraline as one who doesn't really stack up to the one in the book. But I think I've been down this road before on this very blog with a Miss Mina Murray, so I'll just stop now and say I thought it was a bit of a disappointment. But not movie breaking. In fact, all is almost forgiven simply on the basis of Keith David as the cat being an utterly delightful casting choice that always made me grin like, well, the Cheshire Cat whenever he opened his mouth. I don't want to say it was the best thing about the movie... I'l just be over here, secretly thinking it.

All comparisons and analysis aside, Coraline is a fantastic children's book, that was transformed into an interesting, although very different children's movie which is perfectly good on it's own merits. Check 'em both out, read the book to your children if you have any - They'll thank you for it, one day. And if they don't, they're probably ungrateful bastards who probably has more in common with film Coraline anyway.